The solidarity of nations should always prevail over national egoism.

Europe s disintegration has already advanced much further than it might appear. Distrust and national egoism are spreading rapidly, devouring European solidarity and common purpose.

Egoism and self interest prevented them from realizing that Puerto Rico and the United States were married and their divorce would be harmful to both.

By contrast, each passing day seems to drive EU members further apart. Rather than reinventing itself, Europe, under the pressure of the crisis and its own internal contradictions, threatens to revert to the national egoism and protectionism of the past.

Even so, East Central Europeans, who are still recovering from the terrible political calamities caused by Europe s historical demons, find the intensity of their Western counterparts national egoism a bit frightening. Europe s history is full of catastrophes that were produced by the shortsightedness of national political elites.

The European Union resulted from the tragic lessons of the first half of the twentieth century, when giving free rein to national egoism led to continental catastrophe, and increasing globalization means that economic, internal, foreign, and defense policies are unlikely to be successful when pursued exclusively at national level. Yet we continue to believe that social cohesion can be limited to that of the nation.

In the end, it was the EU s eastern flank the supposedly money hungry and immature democracies that called most loudly for a compromise in the name of salvaging political integration, while most of the old European democracies ruthlessly fought for their own national interests. In view of some big countries intense national egoism, the failure to agree on the EU s 2007 2013 budget could have ominous political consequences for Europe.

The French, for example, do not want to lose farm subsidies, just as they are not eager to give more money to the new members, whose reformed economies are taking away French jobs. British leeriness about giving up the EU rebate in the face of what is perceived as French egoism is equally understandable despite the fact that this stance harms the enlargement process, which Great Britain otherwise supports.